Delhi University: Cluster colleges will affect jobs, academic standards, says AADTA

NEW DELHI: The Cluster Colleges move by the Delhi University strong opposition from the DU teachers group. The implementation of the Cluster Colleges scheme by DU under the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) is another major push for privatisation that will subsequently compromise the academic standard, National Teachers Organisation of AAP (AADTA) said.

DU Executive Council (EC) members Seema Das, Rajpal Singh Pawar and Acadmic Counsil members Kapila Mallah, Alok Ranjan Pandey and CM Negi wrote to Delhi University vice-chancellor Yogesh Singh over this issue.

The university announced the creation of Cluster Colleges (Knowledge Networks) under its Undergraduate Curriculum Framework 2022 (UGCF) on October 31. According to which, the university has decided to group DU colleges under five different cluster colleges to overcome the availability of faculties to teach such courses as well as other attendant infrastructural and functional requirements.

Opposing the move, the members said that “The academic matters related to teaching-learning and examinations are exclusively under the jurisdiction of the Academic Council (Clause 23, DU Act 1922, Statute 7(8)(xviii)) and the staff councils (Ord XVIII -6A-5) and this (Cluster College) notification has not been discussed in and approved by the statutory bodies.”

“This notification has wider implications and should not be implemented by the Executive feat bypassing the statutory bodies like EC, AC, the standing committee, the Faculty, the staff councils,” AADTA in a statement said.

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Cluster college scheme: Drawbacks

Explaining the problems that will arise if the DU cluster colleges scheme is implemented, the teachers association said, “This Scheme will lead to fluctuating workload and hence, lead to contractualisation of the teaching positions. This is to wipe out the additional posts required under OBC expansion scheme and EWS scheme and withhold the second tranche posts.”

“In this scenario of skewed teacher-students ratio, this clusterisation will severely compromise the academic standard and reputation of a hundred years old DU,” it added.

Further, the scheme will also adversely affect the prospects of the permanent jobs for thousands of adhoc and temporary teachers in the university, for whom the DU teachers have been demanding the absorption.

“As the quality of education will suffer, the students especially SC, ST, OBC, EWS, PWD, women will be at the receiving end with long-term disadvantageous impacts,” it added.

Instead of implementing the cluster colleges scheme, AADTA demanded the university to strengthen the stable campus ecology by releasing additional posts under second tranche and EWS quota (as promised by the December 5, 2019, letter of the ministry of education) and increasing the grants of the colleges.